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20-40s at highest risk of bird flu

     London: The UK Government's top medical adviser Sir Liam Donaldson has warned that adults aged 20 to 40 are the most at risk of contracting the deadly bird flu virus. Emphasising that a similar flu hit exactly the same group almost 100 years ago, Donaldson cautioned that the bug could strike more than once, and the second wave could be even more lethal infecting one in two people and claiming more than 700,000 lives. Launching the Government's updated bird flu contingency plan, he said the arrival of the bug, was 'inevitable', though no one knows when it will strike or how it will act. "We cannot determine in advance what the risk groups are going to be. They are more likely to be the usual groups but it is just possible it could have its own signature like Spanish flu and disproportionately affect another age group," the Daily Mail quoted Donaldson as saying. Donaldson said that the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic, which killed 50 million worldwide 'selectively targeted' 20 to 40 year olds. "The evidence from the past is that we won't just have one wave of infection, we will have subsequent waves as well, which may be as intense or even more intense than the initial wave. It is a very, very transmissible disease and will come in from all points. We cannot be sure what the levels of death are," he said. Vaccinating the very old and the very young first could leave the middle-aged vulnerable to infection. It is also possible the elderly may have been exposed to a similar bug in the past and so have some immunity to the new virus, leaving younger adults more vulnerable.